It Was Our Hope (english version)
by Roselyne
Summary: Trunks, 17 years old, sees in the time-machine his mother built, a way to save his world from the cyborgs. But things will be REALLY different from what he hoped...
1. A Light In The Darkness

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IT WAS OUR HOPE  
Chapter One - A Light In The Darkness

  


The night was there; a light full-moon night, a fresh end of winter night. 

The hangar-laboratory wasn't totally plunged into the darkness, as a Plexiglas dome at the top of the lab was diffusing the silvery light from the moon. In the middle of this beam of light, was standing proudly in the place of honor a strange egg-shape machine, slender, with a metallic-yellow color. The cockpit, at the top of the machine, was shining gently in the light. On the turbines' sides was the Capsule Corporation's trademark. 

From the darkness where he was, a young boy was observing the machine, silently. His eyes, with the icing-water color, were shining in the shadow. He walked slowly, bare-foot, in the light zone, dressed with an ample light blue sweat-shirt and a gray jogging pant. His hair seemed silvery in this nocturne light. 

He stopped 3 meters before the machine and raised his head to observe it fully. 

*So strange...*, he thought, *that to win against the machines, we need a machine...* 

Trunks Connor, a young 17 years old soldier, who had fought actively the cyborgs since he was 11, sighed with resignation. He reached the machine and put his right hand on the sheet metal covering the apparatus's body. There was a thump, as when you put your hand on a glider wall. It was - at least - how he identified the sound. He made his hand sliding on the wall as he was walking some steps in a partial circular movement around the machine. 

This thing... This machine... could become his main ally in the maddest adventures he could have imagined... An adventure on which the total humanity was depending... Or at least, what was left of this humanity... 

It has been three years since his mother had told him 'bout the machine she was building... It has been three years since he had knew that one day, he would have to use it, for the safe of everyone... It has been three years since everything was only a fool dream for him... 

It has been three days since the certainty was there... Yes, as soon as the dawn would approach, he would embark in this machine, and would go - no to a precise destination - but to a precise time. The time of 20 year ago... The "Down World", as he has become used to name it. 

He knew he would have to find there the leader of the warrior group that was defending at that time the humanity. This leader, Son Goku had died of an heart illness some time before the cyborgs's arrival. His mother who was at that time a member of his group, was convinced that he would have been able to beat the cyborgs, and prevent their world to become the hell, it had become... 

*This man had to be someone very tremendous, Trunks thought. * Would the fact to give him this medicine, change the face of the world ?* 

Trunks knew then why he couldn't fall asleep. He would have at last the occasion to meet all these persons he could only imagine. He was going to meet them, face to face, and no more on a 2D picture yellowed with the passing time; Son Goku, Piccolo, Krilin, Vegeta... 

Especially Vegeta. 

He smiled to himself, putting his hands in his pocket. His right hand met then a marker he probably had put unconsciously earlier. He began to manipulate it absentmindedly as he was still thinking about the travel he would undertake the next day. 

The next day ? 

He turned to the wall clock in order to watch the time, with an awful doubt, but it was hidden in the darkness. He took out his left hand of his pocket and check his watch. He gasped : 02:34 a.m. ?!? 

He ought to try to sleep. He had still 3 great sleeping-hours before his mother would come to look for him. It was better for him to be in a full possession of his abilities if he didn't want to make a manipulating error. He smiled with the idea to arrived at the dinosaurs' time... What a joke ! 

He looked a last time at their last, their only hope, and turned away, decided to absolutely sink into the sleep... 

He had made three steps when suddenly an idea flashed through his mind. He turned back and walked to one of the turbines. With an impulsive gesture, he took out the marker from his pocket and wrote 4 letters on the wall of the apparatus : 

  
**HOPE**

He added some effect with two exclamation points. When he had finished, he moved two steps away to consider his "artwork" and smiled. 

Yes. it was their hope... Their only hope to change everything... 

His mind a little bit allayed, Trunks turned away from the machine to reach his room. He left the light zone, and the darkness engulfed him again.   


[To be continued ;) ]

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And here it goes for the first chapter of this fic :D  
It's an old fanfic I once did on my website, but I decided to post it here to see what people were thinking about it, so… pleaaase *puppy eyes* Reviews? :))))))))))))  
:P


	2. Leaving This World Behind

**IT WAS OUR HOPE**

**chapter two - _Leaving This World Behind_**

  


Trunks checked one last time the encoded data in the machine. He was in an empty place. The turbines of the machine were gently purring, the moment was almost there. He jumped from the cockpit to the ground to check if everything was OK, he was repeating the gestures that he and his mother had rehearsed the previous days. None of the control pannels was open. There was no obstacle to his departure. 

He levitated again towards the cockpit. He was trying to remain calm, but he was feeling his heart beating with strength in his chest. He breathed deeply several times, but it wasn't enough to calm him down. He was displaying unconsciously a wide smile, but a slight terror of the unknown was slowly moving in his heart. 

He was about to slide into the chronoporting cockpit when an explosion rang out in the doom of New-Ysta, the West Zone head-city. That city, once known as "Ysta", had been one of the first cities to be destroyed by the cyborgs very few after the beginning of the war against the machines. Some groups of humans had taken refuge in the former headcity to try to rebuild a place where to live. The caves were sometimes abundant in invaluable treasures, as food cans or other stuffs... 

But, with the passing years and the flood of refugees, the reserves had been exhausted, threatening the New Ysta inhabitants of famine. 

And here were they, those damn cyborgs, attacking again the humans. 

They were too close. Trunks couldn't dawdle. He knew perfectly that the energy released by the machine wouldn't take long before warning them, and they would rush to him as night butterflies attracted by the spotlights... 

He could hear the shouts of the endangered humans in the city that the cyborgs were destroying merciless. He was feeling torn appart between the desire to help the humans and the obligation to accomplish his mission. 

But he also knew perfectly that two weeks ago, the last time he had faced the cyborgs, only a miracle had allowed him to come out of it alive. He still didn't understand how he had survived, with the cyborgs shooting at him at blank point, while Gohan, in a situation less serious, had passed away... 

No, going into a fight now against them wouldn't help the New Ysta inhabitants. On the contrary, his own death would provoke at more of less long term the disappearance of the whole human kind on Earth. 

Grudgingly he decided to enter the cockpit. He switched on the first comands and closed the cockpit. After a minute, the machine started raising in the air. 

He was at two meters from the ground when he noted two human-looking shapes running in his direction. He straightened and his eyes grew wide. *No... I'm not ready yet...!* 

He was suddenly angry against himself for the time he had waste, tergiversating about the good side in his "non assistance to people in danger". 

Trunks didn't even realize that his fingers clenched on the instrument panel were white. *No... Our hope is not going to disappear like that... That would be unfair!!!" 

He was somehow happy about the fact he had insited that his mother did not accompany him until the "launching area". 

He noted that the two shapes were not clearing off in *his* direction, but slightly on the right. 

Clearing off... 

That's when he realized which word his mind had used. 

The cyborgs never cleared off... They run. They have a purpose. In fact, you could say that the cyborgs are the personification of the "objective" word. 

And then, why would they run, while they could fly? Faster way to move than simple running. 

He then took the scaouter his mother had build and used it as a binocular; As the materia of the cockpit didn't let the waves passing - it had to be very resistant to the eventual interferences of a temporal rift - he couldn't feel the ki throught the cockpit. 

The picture first pixelized, then corrected, revealed two teenagers running away from New-Ysta. They were going to pass very close to the chronoporting. The two teen-agers didn't look like the cyborgs 17 and 18. The girl had light brown mid-long hair while the boy was hiding them under a reversed hat. Their clothes were different from each other. While the boy was as badly dressed as the people from the city, which meant torn jeans, dirty tee-shirt, and worn out baskets, the girl was wearing cloth in an almost indian style. 

Already, in a distance, in the city, the explosions were getting closer. No doubt that the cyborgs were going to chase after them as soon as they would locate their ki. 

Trunks felt again torn between two obligations. 

After measuring the pros and cons, he decided for the solution that seemed the best: He lowered the chronoporting and opened the cockpit. 

"THIS WAY!!", he shouted to the two teenagers. He saw them startling at the sound of his voice. 

"This way! Hurry up!!!!", he went on with the same urgent voice. 

A new explosion, closer than the previous one, was heard behind them. Trunks estimated that the cyborgs had moved closer of 300 meters. Normal movement. Nothing alarming... At least, yet... 

The sound of the explosion seemed to take the girl out of her torpor. She shook the boy, grabbed his arm, and dragged him towards Trunks before he decided to move again by himself. 

They were ten meters from the chronoporting when a new explosion was heard. This time, Trunks estimated at 1500 meters from them. In brief, the cyborgs had moved 200 meters closer in 15 seconds. Bad, that. Very bad. They had probably noted the energy released by the machine... 

He jumped rapidely from the chronoporting and flew towards the two teenagers who stopped right away their progression to him, scared. Before they had the time to react, Trunks had passed an arm aroung their waists and was flying back towards the machine. The young boy seemed to shocked to react, but the girl screamed and struggled. Trunks felt tempted to abandon her right there but changed his mind. He releazed them brutally inside the cockpit, ordering them to be as small as they could. He sat on the pilot seat, and the two teenagers understood why they had to squeeze up: the inside of the machine wasn't planned for three people, barely two... With the same speed she had reacted when Trunks had first called them, the girl flattenned on the ground, leant on her left side, taking the shape of an arc of a circle to follow the shape of the wall. With a pressure on his shoulder, she invited the tennager boy to do the same. 

A new explosion, closer again. Trunks estimated that the cyborgs were close to the perimeter of the city. 

Trunks had no time to waste. He closed the cockpit, and restarted the commands. They reacted in a blink. The machine started raising in the air again. 

"They are closer, right?", a voice asked behind him. Without turning, Trunks knew it was the young boy who had talked. And without turning, he replied: "Yeah. I just hope we'll be away before they bring their asses here..." 

After a second of silence, the young boy went on: "No flying machine can match their speed. Damn it! We're screwed!! If only we had remained down there... They are after this machine, we could have remained unnoticed..." 

"If I hadn't stopped to take you with me...", Trunks started before a new explosion interrupted him. It was closer, but now that the cockpit was closed, he couldn't judge of a distance with the noise. "... I'd be far away now, and you, you'd both be into serious troubles..." 

A new explosion. 

Trunks went on, smiling: "And besides, we're not going to move through space..." 

The young girl chuckled: "Really? Through what, then? Through time?" 

Trunks turned a surprised smile to her: "... exactely..." 

He then saw the surprise in her grey eyes. She had meant irony, not a reality. Trunks frowned and turned back to the instrument panel: "... if of course, I managed to open a Temporal rift before those two assholes bring their face around here..." 

A new explosion could be heard, but in a soften way, throught the cockpit Plexiglas. Trunks, however, guessed that it was closer than the previous one. He glanced the energy rate. They were at 70% of the requested energy to open a temporal rift. The turbines were purring louder and louder. A slight vibration started being felt in the entire machine. 

73 % 

A new explosion. The two teenagers tensed, not daring to talk, aware of the approaching cyborgs. 

77% 

The machine was now at five meters from the ground. 

82 % 

A new explosion. Trunks didn't pay too much attention to it, checking one last time that there was no mistake about data inputs. 

*You're going to stop stressing like that, OK?*, a little voice from the back of his mind, told him. 

85 % 

*And first of all, I don't stress!*, Trunks replied mentally to the little voice. He was still carrying out what he hadn't stopped repeating in virtual simulation these last three days. 

89 % 

The machine was at ten meters high. The sun whose rays hadn't reached the ground yet, lightened the chronoporting. Now, in addition the the releazed energy, its brillance was making of it a wonderful target. And Trunks knew it. And Bulma too. It was the main reason why she had requested his departure to be before the sun would rise. 

92 % 

An explosion, closer this time.   
The walls of the machine started vibrating. Trunks who had his fingers clenched on the intrument panel felt a slight hum. 

*I hope that...* 

A new explosion cut him in his thoughts. This time, the emitted light had slightly lightened the inside of the cockpit. The girl gasped with terror. They were all feeling the approaching threat.   


94% 

The hum increased. It was now impossible to deny it. All the objects were emitting an unpleasant vibration. 

Trunks noted then that the closest the counter was moving to 100%, the slowest its progression was. 

Not good, that... 

He looked towards the city in flames, wondering if there would be enough time to open the temporal rift. The horrible thought that he should have let the two teenagers on the ground to make diversion went through his mind. He sook violently his head to chase that thought away, but it remained there, moving inside his mind like a sniggering gnome. 

95% 

Trunks' breath was short. It seemed to him that there had been an eternity to move from 94% to 95%. He was now fearing he'd never reach 100% in time. 

A new explosion could be heard, again more distinct that the previous ones... Trunks was clenching his teeth almost to the point of exploding his jaws. The lights of the explosion were dancing on his faces like ghosts. 

The vibration changed into a sound, a low tune, so low that the three teenagers wondered each if they were not imagining it. As they were not talking, they couldn't get confirmation in a first time . 

Trunks reported his attention on the counter that was displaying... 

95% 

Damn it! It was really becoming slow! 

He turned slightly towards the two others: "We've never been farer during the experimental parts! I just hope it's going to stand the shock!". He bit his lip just after telling that. All right, man. Do scare them! The only thing still missing in the scenario is a wave of panic from your two passengers! 

He looked again the counter: 

95% 

Something was wrong! 

Trunks scanned mechanically the instrument panel. There *had* to be something he had forgotten. And the worst was that he had the true feeling that it was something really evident. But sometimes, it's when things are evident that you see them the least. He rubbed his temples with his fingers, trying to see where was the mistake. Because he was sure now that he *had* to accomplish something if he wanted the counter to progress again... But what? 

In his mind, the solution was moving in the shadows, sliding before he could catch it, hiding into some burrow, like an scared animal. 

Trunks was mentally trying to remember of all the procedures he had been through with his mother, checking all the commands and buttons. He wondered if his mother had told him about a specific reason for the counter to be blocked. 

In his mind the scared little animal showed a shy muzzle out of the burrow. 

He was still scanning the panel when his gaze stopped on something particular. 

In his mind, the shy little animal had decided to come out of the furrow. Except that it was not as little as he had initially thought. It was rather a large, big, enormous animal, able to sweep away everything around it. 

Trunks was staring at a blinking organe button: the security lock. 

"DUMBASS HALF SAIYA-JIN!!!", he yelled at himself while slamming his fist on the button. The two teenagers startled. The orange light disappeard in the same time as a new explosion was lightening the inside of the machine with more intensity then before. 

Trunks tensed as the low tune provoked by the vibration of the machine split. Another tune a little less low, was now playing with the first one. 

96% 

Hope was back again in Trunks, but he didn't know if Time would be on his side too... And if the machine would reach the 100% before the cyborgs did reach him. A third tune mixed to the two first one, the vibrations in the machine were raising. 

They'd never been so far during the tests made in the underground laboratory at the Capsule Corporation. Trunks was clenching his teeth in the expectation of a catastrophe. His heart was perhaps beaiting a little bit too fast, but he was trying to keep a calm breathing. 

A fourth tune mixed to the first three ones when the counter reached 97%. Each of the tunes were vibing independantly from each other, but seemed somehow in harmony. 

Nothing happened at the outside during the whole time the counter took to pass from 97% to 98%, but for Trunks and the two other teenagers, it seemed even worse than when the explosion were punctuating the silence as a metronom. Without any way to feel the variation of energy from the inside of the chronoporting, Trunks had plenty of time to think of the darkest scenario ever, imagining the cyborgs, crouched at the feet of the machine, and preparing a surprise attack. You could almost palpate the tension in the cabin when the counter reached 98%. Strangeley, the tension was relaxed when the next explosion could be heard. Trunks preferred to locate the movements of the cyborgs with the noises they were making. His nerves were frayed during the periods of silence between each explosion. 

Well... with this fifth tune that had joined the existing mellow melody, you couldn't say "silence" any longer... 

"At which distance are they from us?", the girl asked. 

Her voice is strange, Trunks realized, as if it was deepthless. 

"We can't really tell it because of the Plexiglas", Trunks started. "All I can say, is that they are closer..." 

He realized his own voice had lost its depth. It seemed hoarse and flat, as if recorded with a low quality microphon. He understood that the air vibration, which his ear was interpreting as tunes, were probably acting on the air layers by inducing a separation between them. 

Suddenly, in a distance, Trunks saw a movement that made him miss the switch from 98% to 99% on the counter. 

Two shapes were converging on his direction. He didn't need to sendse the ki - anyway unexistant in the cybrogs - to know that his two sworn enemies had located him and give chase to him. Trunks noted that the tunes, once independant, seemed to merge in a new and hypnotosing melody. His teeth were slightly vibing from it. The slight trembling gained rapidely his whole body as well as the machine and the two teenagers. 

The ambiant air around the machine started becomign slightly phosphorescent, preventing unfortunately Trunks from seeing outside the machine as well as before. The inside was now violently vibing, the melody was becoming deafening, and the intensity of light was always raising. 

Uncounsciously, Trunks started screaming, as well as the two adolescents.   


And then he saw the cyborgs.   


They were probably at less than three meters from the machine and were leaping towards it at high speed. And the counter switched to 100% 

Through the blinding light, Trunks saw the cyborgs passing through the Plexiglas... and through himself... as if they were just ghosts...   


*No*, Trunks thought, *the ghost, it's me...*   
  
  


And then everything became pitch black. 

  
  
[to be continued ;) ] 

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_And finally, here they started their trip in the past._

_Sorry for adding to new characters. There's **no Mary-sue **here, the girl is briefly mentionned in another DBZ fic of mine (Wolfblood) and the boy is quite new :)_

_I had to add them, for if Trunks would go alone in that past that will (did?) take place in taht fic, he'd go insane after a few hours ;) We need him to last a few chapters :))))))))))_

_**Mirai-Trunks: **- Why do I have a bad feeling sudenly? ;_


	3. The Hour of the Wolf

**IT WAS OUR HOPE  
_Chapter three - The Hour Of the Wolf_**

  


Trunks was looking outside the machine, trying not to detail too much what he was seeing, fearing to turn crazy. 

How much time had flown since he had recovered, and especially, how long had he remained unconscious? He knew nothing about it, and that was making him unease. 

The chronoporting seemed to progress in a tunnel. But it was not the usual light tunnel people were talking about after a Near-Death experience. It was more like a twirl of cold and dark colors. Dark purple, turning to dark blue, becoming black, in a continuous color variation. 

Threatening thunders were clashing across the tunnel and Trunks was tensed, hoping none of them would hit the machine. He wasn't even sure if the air of the tunnel could be breathable. 

"Where are we?", the young girl had just recovered and was raising on her feet. She became suddenly silent when she saw the outside scenery with big wide eyes where you could read both curiosity and wild terror. Her voice was still strange, Trunks thought, as if the air vibration hadn't stopped. He realized that it was probably the case, it was just that the air melody *had* stopped. 

A weak growl from aside told him that the young boy had also recovered. The _"Holy sh..." _that followed, confirmed to Trunks that the teenager had just seen the outside show. 

"You can't even say if it's amazing, or totally awful", Trunks whispered, more for himself. 

"You... can... explain us?", the girl asked. 

A pause. 

Then she went on, "waitaminit... you were serious when you were talking about travelling in the time?". She had a strange smile. 

Trunks breathed deeply. Better explaining everything since the beginning, to avoid further questions when he'd need to focus on his own mission. 

"For three years, the laboratories of the Capsule Corporation, lead by my mother, have been working on the creation of a chronoporting able to move back in time.", he started. "It was made clear that we had no other alternative in our world to defeat the cyborgs. My mother thought then to act on the past, in order to change our future." 

"I got it!", the teen-ager boy shouted, "you want to kill the guy who created the cyborgs before they are activated, right?!"   


Trunks remained silent, considering the solution the youth was thinking of. "Hn... My initial mission is in fact to heal the one who could destroy them, and to warn...", he hesitated about the name to give, then, "to warn a group of elite fighters so that, with a few years of training, they can get a change against the cyborgs and they can be able to organize the Resistance in the past." 

"Isn't it more simple to kill the cyborg-maker?", the young boy asked again. 

The girl was remaining silent, starting at nothing in particular, as if she was thinking about other consequences... 

Trunks wondered why his mother had never give him the mission to kill Doctor Gero, instead of saving Goku and warning the Z-warriors to be ready for the fight... "I suppose that no one ever knew where his lab was", he simply retorted, not very sure this was the exact reason... 

The girl ended by leaving her torpor. "We go... to which year?", she asked with a flat voice. 

"In 765 first", Trunks answered, "then in 768." 

"Hn..." 

The girl seemed disappointed by something, but Trunks decided not to pay too much attention to it. To each his/her own business... 

"It's really cool, anyway, man...", the young boy said. 

Trunks nodded. Then they remained silent for an undetermined moment. Time itself didn't really exist in this place. Trunks wondered how the body and metabolism were working in this place. Was the internal watch working as before? Was it stopped? Was it accelerating, or slowing down? 

"Your mother, it's Bulma?", the young boy asked. Trunks turned a frown to him. The youth explained "bah yeah, you said your mother was directing the laboratories of the Capsule Corporation..." 

"Exactly", Trunks answered after a second, "and my name in Trunks." 

"Trunks Connor", the young boy went on, "yeah yeah, I heard about you. You're the dumbass who keeps attacking the cyborgs all the time while you never stand a chance and --", he stopped when he saw Trunks' face expression. 

"..." 

"What?", the youth asked, surprised. 

"... nothing", Trunks growled. "It's always a pleasure to learn how people see you..." 

The youth understood his mistake and remained silent during two seconds - at least, what seemed to be two seconds for him, which actually seemed to be 3 seconds 52 for Trunks - before trying to correct his mistake, "Yeah... But what you do, it's really cool anyway, heh?" 

Trunks growled. 

"... My name is Jayce Kellner", the youth told, still trying to move the conversation on a less sensitive topic. 

Trunks growled again. 

"Err... and I am Myriam Mac Leod", the girl completed. 

Trunks growled one more time and then it was the silence. 

Silence interrupted after a while by Jayce: "no but, I mean it, man... What you do, it's HYPER cool, what!" 

Growl from Trunks. 

Silence. 

Jayce broke the silence again: "Really HYPER cool, man..." 

Growl from Trunks. 

Long silence. 

Whisper from Myriam: "Well done, Jayce" 

Silence 

Whisper from Jayce: "Fuck you!" 

Long silence. 

Trunks ended by considering a blinking button on the navigation board and turned to the two others. "Try to hold on something which is not a handle, nor a button, but hold it firmly... We are reaching our destination... It might shake a little..." 

"I wonder what it is... a world without a war...", Jayce got the time to say before the chronoporting passed the temporal gate corresponding to the program Bulma had put inside the machine.   


Trunks was right....   
  


It DID shake....   
  


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There… I tried to describe the temporal tunnel we get to see in the episod where Trunks returns to the future after Cell's destruction by Gohan.  
I dunno what you think about it … *puppy eyes *__* *

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Mirai-Trunks: - This, people, means the psycho-author here would like some reviews ^^;  
**Roselyne ***patting Mirai-Trunks' head*: - good boy… clever boy ^___^ not like some other dumb purple-haired boy living in the present time-line :P  
**Trunks: **- HEY!!!!! :E  
**Roselyne** *battling eyelids over innocent eyes*: - Did I mention any name? O:-)


	4. All Alone In The Night

Disclaimer:   
All character from DBZ belong to Akira Toriyama  
The others (Jayce and Myriam, so far) are mine ;) 

**IT WAS OUR HOPE   
Chapter Four - All Alone In The Night**

  


The chronoporting was stabilized at 24000 feet high. Trunks looked his flight instruments. They were standing over the West Zone head city. Bad, that. From the calculations, the time-machine was supposed to appear over a desert zone, but as no previous test could have been made before, he had to expect this type of divergence. 

"We are over the head-city", Jayce asked after having a look at the flight instruments. Trunks nods with a dark look. Myriam turned away from the outside to face the two boys. "It's cool you can read all those stuffs. Otherwise nothing outside could tell that." She observed Trunks' frown. "What's wrong?" 

Trunks hesitated, then answered: "Bah, from my mother's calculations, we should have arrived in a desert zone, and not over a zone with such traffic like the head-city. I'll have to lower this machine to the ground and with all the flight-traffic down there, I'm not really reassured." 

"What's the problem? Just go to a safer place a land there", Myriam suggested. 

Trunks shook his head. "I have not enough energy to get out of this zone. I'll have to start very soon the landing process, and about discretion, bye bye". 

Jayce spoke: "but you can fly, no? We can all get out of the machine here and you take us away. I don't think we weight too much for you." 

Of course, with the war in the future, no one was eating enough to be considered as "heavy". 

Trunks shook his head again. "I also have to reduce this machine to put it in safe place. I won't be able to hold both of you AND to reduce it." 

Considering the face expression of his two misfortune comrades, Trunks explained: "This machine is the only way to return in the future and save our kind. I can never forget that I **HAVE **to return there..." 

Jayce spoke then: "And your mother, wouldn't she be able to build a machine of that type, here in the past?" 

"I don't think so", Trunks answered, "the technology used to build this chronoporting is way too advanced for this time..." 

Trunks thought for a moment that if he hadn't take those two with him at first, the problem wouldn't be there. But he knew he could have never abandoning them to the cyborgs. 

He put the ear plugs on his ears. 

"Ysta Control, here's the flight...", he hesitated on the number to give, then, "CC01F, roger!" 

He pressed the "Receive" button... And heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. No static electricity hum, no chattering, no ground control; no other plane or flying car. He checked the transponder chock: 8700, as it was supposed to be. He switched back to transmission mode: "Ysta Control, please answer, here's Flight CC01F, I repeat, here's Flight CC01F, and we have a problem, Ysta, we have a problem. Roger." 

He switched back the "reception" mode and waited.   


Then suddenly, Trunks did something that provoked in Jayce Kellner a puff of fear and a raise of the adrenaline rate in his blood: From the edge of his hand, Trunks hit the control panel under the radio system. This chronoporting, latest creation of the Capsule Corporation laboratories, was an ultra-sophisticated machine. You could not behave that way with such a device. The young 17 years old warrior had just act as someone who bought for cheap price an old radio device, which, once home, refuses to work. 

Trunks made a new call at the Ysta Control Tower and obtained no reaction. Not the slightest reaction.   


[to be continued… ]

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Sorry, until now I never realized how short this chapter was ^^;;;;;;  
The next ones will be longer :P  
(dramatic pause)  
I hope ^^;


	5. Ysta is Missing

**Disclaimer: **All characters from DBZ belong to Akira Toriyama.   
The others one (so far, Myriam and Jayce) belond to me ;-) 

**IT WAS OUR HOPE  
Chapter Five - YSTA is Missing **

Until that moment, Trunks had remained in a state of perplexity mixed to stupefaction. He was now starting to feel the fear. Until now, with the excitation of the time-travel, he hadn't got the time to feel the fear. He was regretting this change... But he had no choice. He switched on the radio on the emergency wavelength and tried again. Still no reaction. The feeling to make the 911 and to arrive on an answering machine telling you that the place is closed for the week-end.

When you were calling for help on the emergency wavelength, there was *always* an answer. Even during the war in his time, you could always get a fast answer.

*At least, until now*, Trunks thought.

He switched then to OMNICOM, a system allowing the private pilots to obtain indication to land on small airports. No reaction neither. He listened... and heard really nothing. And THAT was impossible. The private pilots are as chatterer as two teen-age girls who phone each others. The guy in the Cessna absolutely wants to know the weather condition. The one in the Piper will die straight in his seat if no one phones his wife to tell that he'll come home with three last-minutes guests. And the one in the Lear-Jet requires that the frontdesk girl at the Temploux Airport tells to the passengers who are waiting for him that he'll have 15 minutes of delay, but not to worry: They'll be in time for the base-ball Game in Dewton.

And, there was nothing of that. It seemed that the chattering passrows had all flown away, and the phone wires were remaining empty.

He came back to the Emergency Wavelength.   
**"Ysta, speak! Ysta, Speak! Here's flight CC01F, damn it, SPEAK! "**

Myriam touched his shoulder slightly. "Stay calm, man" 

Trunks was still gazing the flight instruments, trying to understand the reason to that silence. "Nothing answers."

Myriam went on, "what do you mean "nothing"? "

Trunks kept on gazing the fight instruments: **" I'm talking about the Ysta Flight Control Tower! I'm talking about the FAA and its emergency service! Even OMNICOM is silent! God damn it! What the hell are they doing?!"**

He switched on another panel. "Look", he went on with a lower voice, "we are in the short and middle wavelengths. It should jump everywhere like cats on a hot roof, and can't get any!"

He pressed another button and raised his eyes to the two teenagers. "There's even not a single VOR marker at Ysta".

"Which means?", Jayce asked.

"... which means that I have no radio, no navigation marker, and that all the time-machine control devices tell me there's nothing wrong, **MY FOOT!!!**" 

An awful idea started reaching the surface of his mind... It was the only thing possible... the only way to explain this silence...

"Hey, you!", he shouted at Myriam, "Look down by the Plexi, and tell me what you see!"

Myriam Mac Leod did what he said. She remained a moment, leant on the plexiglas. "Nothing", she ended by saying. "Nothing at all... Just clouds and stars".

"No sign of other planes?"

"No", she answered.

Trunks raised and looked also through the Plexi for a moment.

Finally, Jayce broke the silence: "Ysta disappeard, right?"

Trunks for a moment. Even if they were in full night, there was always flight traffic to the other capitals, and there should have been the lights from at least ONE plane. But here, the only lights visible in the sky where those of the stars.

"Yes", he answered after a moment. "Ysta disappeard".

[to be continued... ]

*****************

_All right, I'll give a few explanations here about some terms used:_

_**CC01F**: Name improvised by Trunks for his time-machine. It does actually have a meaning for him: _

_- **CC** = Capsule Corporation  
- **01** = First time-machine created in the...  
- **F** = Future :P_

_**Temploux Airport : **It does exists really. It is a small airport localized in Namur in the country of Belgium (Europe). It does not get big planes like Concords or Boeing, but Cessna and gliders are the type of planes that use that airport. It used to be a great place two decades ago (I grew up there when I was kid :) - I love planes :)))) ), but recently it turned out to be doom :( Well, hoping it will regain its original look and atmosphere :) (uh oh, becoming sentimental, here ^^; )_

_I agree I mixed a lot of associations and places (FAA and Dewton are american; Temploux is Belgian, … don't ask me where I got "Ysta" from, I can't remember ^^;;;; ), but hey, this is an alternate universe of ours (WAY alternate :PPPP ), so things can be a little bit mixed up :PPPP_


	6. Past or Future?

**IT WAS OUR HOPE**

**chapter Six - _Past or Future_**

  


Trunks was busy scanning all possible and imaginable radio frequencies. Useless effort: neither Ysta, nor any the big cities of the West Zone were answering... He was feeling sweat rolling down his back like tears while the scenario he was fearing was forming with more and more precision in his mind. 

*I must stink like a fitchet*, he thought, *or like...* 

The inspiration hit him then. He switched to the Army frenquencies, despite the formal ban done to the civil planes to use it. The Strategic Air Command was covering the whole planet. *They* would inevitable be listening. They'd probably tell him to get away from their frequencies, undoubtedly threatening to give his name to the FAA, but Trunks would just be too happy to hear them shouting. It would be at least the sign that a - human - life was still existing on Earth. 

"Air Force Control, Air Force Control, here's flight CC01F, we have a problem with our plane, a BIG problem, do you hear me? Roger!" 

No answer here neither... 

Then Trunks closed his eyes and breathed deeply while leaning back on his seat and putting his hands on his face. Jayce wanted to talk but a gaze from Myriam stopped him. 

Seconds passed, seconds that seemed lasting forever for Trunks while he was viewing all the possible scenarios, with always one of them, coming higher than the others, as a corpse full of air, almost reaching the surface of a river. 

Trunks slided his hands through his wet hair and opened his eyes. It's an expressionless gaze he put on the panel instruments. He didn't even have to say loud what the others were thinking, it was a useless exchange of words. 

Suddenly, Jayce started to talk with an optimistic tone. 

"After the temporal tunnel we just went through, the electromagnetical disturbances did probably messed up with the devices, and while they show we are over the head-city, we are perhaps over the desert, as you were expecting..." 

*Tempating solution*, Trunks thought, *but to move away* 

"No", he answered with a flat voice, "because if the magnetic field of the temporal tunnel was the responsible factor, the radio should be crackling with static electricity and the radarscope would be streaked with interferences... Then, why this silence and this void?" 

"And what if it was the time?", Myriam then spoke. The two boys turned to her, sitting against the wall of the chronoporting. "If we were not in the right time, but so far in the past that humans have not invented the radio or other similar type of communication yet... Or else...", she hesitated to finish her sentence. 

Trunks understood and resumed: "or else in the future". He met Myriam's look and held it for a moment. Myriam nodded, "... yeah... a far future where the cyborgs would have destroyed everything, as their main enemy - you - had ceased to exist from the course of events..." 

Trunks gazed in front of him again, clenching his fists, his eyes wide. Myriam understood his thoughts and went on with a calm voice: "if that's what happened, you have no reason to feel guilty. It's a failure in the process which created that. No one could have planned this. You told us yourself, no test could be made. Not even one." 

She could as well be screaming directly into his ear, Trunks would not have reacted more. Trunks could as well be a fish in a river while a birds' flight was passing over him: their cries could perhaps reach him, but he was not paying attention to them. 

If what the girl had said was true, and that they had been sent, not in the past, but in a farer future, his hope of saving the Human kind had just flown away like smoke in the wind. Worst: he wouldn't have been there when the cyborgs had destroyed everything. He was feeling guilty not to be present at that time. 

Even if, deep inside of him, he knew he wouldn't have been a match against them. Only delaying them for a few minutes, the time that a handle of humans would use to run and away and hide... Until the moment - very near - where the cyborgs would have found them... 

Trunks finally started talking, with a flat voice: "Even if it's hard to admit, one of you must be right...", he paused, then went on, "... for.. it can't be what I imagine..." 

  
[to be continued ;) ] 

***************************  


_Sory... I had this chapter on my hard-drive for awhile now, and just realized I forgot to post it all this time... ^^;_

_*starts running in zig-zag as Starlight, the actual UNIQUE reader (view from the reviews :p ) begins to throw various kitchen items toward her*_

_:P_


End file.
